When my eyes opened, the only thing in front of them was a whitewashed concrete wall.
Where am I? What happened?
Fog clung to my thoughts like a spiderweb, slowing everything down and making it difficult to access memories.
I sat up, gingerly cradling my head as a pounding headache threatened to split it in half.
The room was small and contained nothing but the single bed I woke up on. The mattress was only a couple inches thick, barely a pad on top of a metal spring frame. A window let in bright sunlight and had iron bars bolted onto it; the lower pane sat cracked open, letting in a light breeze.
A toilet sat through a simple wooden door on one end of the room and a large metal portal sat closed on the wall next to the bed.
It looked like a prison cell.
Oh, my God. What the fuck is going on?
It would have been sweltering if I hadn’t been almost naked.
I struggled to get to my feet, stumbling the two steps to the door and latching onto the handle to keep upright. I took a couple deep breaths to steady myself and then gave the handle a yank.
Nothing.
I tried harder, pulling with everything in my weakened body and failing to wrest the door open.
Come on!
“Let me out of here!” I screamed. “Why am I here?”
The door refused to answer. I hit it, my knuckles cracking on the hardened steel. Pain raced through my arm, and I cried out as I cradled my hand and collapsed back onto the bed.
I was supposed to have dinner with Stephen last night. Then what happened?
I didn’t remember eating with him. I must not have gone.
Why not?
A Russian voice rose from the fog surrounding my memories.
That’s right. The photoshoot.
I went to do a shoot last minute. That explained the clothing, it was the same thing I had been wearing during the shoot.
Anton gave me something to drink.
It must have been drugged. It was the only explanation.
Why would they do that? What will happen to me?
When I’d first moved to New York, I could never have imagined a more lonely feeling than not knowing a single soul in such a massive hive of humanity. The bustle of the city was entrancing, but also frightening. My first night in the tiny studio apartment had been spent in sorrow, convinced I’d made a mistake and should move back home.
The loneliness of that night was nothing compared to the panic I felt rising within me. Tears came to my eyes, and I bit back a sob.
I’d been drugged, locked into a cell, and who knew what would happen. It was surreal, like it should be a scene out of a movie, not happening in real life.
There was a scratching at the door, then the grating of metal on metal.
“Hello?” I called. “Who’s there?”
The door swung open, revealing a big, beefy man carrying a small tray. His face was expressionless, betraying no thoughts of the man within. He could have been the brother of the thuggish man from the night before.
I pushed back from the door, closer to the wall. “Who are you?”
No response. The man set the tray down on the floor and turned to leave.
“Wait!” I called. “Why am I here? What’s going on?”
The door slammed shut, leaving me alone in the small room once more.
Hunger burned a pit in my stomach, reminding me I’d skipped dinner the night before. The tray held a bowl of stew, a spoon, a glass of water, and that was it.
It took hardly any time to scarf down the stew and drink the water, then there was nothing to do but wait.
Fortified with food, some of the nausea and dizziness went away, enough that I felt strong enough to give standing another try. I wanted to look out the window.
“Uh, oh.”
The view wasn’t what I’d expected. There was no hint of the train yard or the Hudson. Instead, the window opened onto a scruffy-looking field and the city noises I expected weren’t present.
This is bad.
The only thing that had prevented a full-fledged panic was the assumption I was still at the warehouse. I knew there was a better shot at rescue if I remained there—there must be a way the police could track down where I went.
I didn’t even know if I was still in New York, or even America.
This is bad.
The gears in the door turned once more, the poorly maintained metal screaming in protest. I turned toward the door and backed into the far corner, adrenaline pumping as I waited to see what this new development would bring.
My jaw dropped as Paul strolled into the room, accompanied by the big man from earlier.
“Paul?”
He smiled. It was amazing how an expression others used to portray joy and happiness could be so twisted and perverse.
“Why Liberty, how sweet of you to drop by and visit. Are you enjoying your stay in my fine establishment here?”
“You son of a bitch!” I rushed forward but before I could claw the eyes out of that smug, self-satisfied face his bodyguard pushed me back and held my arms, keeping me captive.
“Now that’s no way to treat your owner, Liberty. Didn’t your mother ever teach you that politeness and good manners always pay off?”
He reached out and slapped me in an almost casual manner, but the impact rocked my face back and would have sent me to the floor if Paul’s thug hadn’t held me up.
“Owner?” I couldn’t think straight through the pain, and I couldn’t even touch my face to assess the damage thanks to the man restraining me.
“Don’t worry, I’ve slapped enough women that I know how to send a message without leaving a mark.” He sounded proud of the fact. “And yes. I own you, Liberty. Not for long though. With a body and face like yours, there will be many interested buyers. I’m sure you won’t hang around for too long.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s simple.” Paul spoke like he was explaining how the weather worked to a simple-minded child. “People are commodities like any other, and that is my business. Some people are worth more than others, but everyone has a price.” He pulled something out of the hallway and tossed it on the bed—another set of lingerie. “You’ll wear this so you can better show off your assets and fetch a higher price. Your future owner may even be watching right now.”
Paul pointed to where the corner of the room met the ceiling. A small black orb hung there, undoubtedly hiding a camera.
The truth was becoming clear. The terrible, horrific truth.
“You’re going to sell me? As what, a sex slave?”
“Now she gets it!” Paul clapped for a couple seconds, then stopped and brought his face close to mine. “This is what you get when you fucking cross me and embarrass me in public, you little bitch. I’ll make sure you end up with the foulest, cruelest brute of a man possible. If I’m lucky I might even get him to send me videos of the things he does to you.”
A blinding pain hit the left side of my face—a slap I didn’t even see coming. It swamped my senses with pain, and this time I was allowed to slump to the floor. By the time I recovered, the door to the room had slammed shut once more.
I curled up into a ball and rocked where I was. Tears streamed down my face, and I did nothing to stop them. What was the point?
I can’t believe this is happening. This doesn’t happen to people.
How long I cried for—I didn’t know. Minutes. Hours. Until there were no more tears to cry. The reasons for crying cycled from fright to sadness to rage and back again, over and over.
I wish that rotten piece of shit had never walked into Dorgo’s.
If he hadn’t, I would never have met Stephen. But while that relationship was a bright spot in an otherwise hard struggle of a life, it wasn’t worth the cost of the rest of my life spent in slavery.
When I couldn’t cry any longer and my butt was sore from sitting on the concrete floor for so long, I got up. The lin
gerie Paul had left was higher quality than the set I already had on.
I should throw it out the window just to spite him.
The thought sparked an idea.
Not wanting to give any potential observers more than they deserved, I ducked into the bathroom. I stripped off the clothes I wore and slipped into the new ones.
Leaning against the wall to hide my actions from the camera, I used the old red bra to tie a knot around the bars in the window and let the piece of negligee dangle out so it fluttered in the breeze. Then I bunched up the pair of panties and threw them as far as I could.
The slip of fabric turned in the wind and drifted out of sight.
Everything done I could think to do, I lay back on the bed and waited.
The grinding of the door woke me.
It had been two days of absolute boredom, passing the time by sleeping and planning all the delightful ways I would torture Paul if I ever got the chance. The only breaks in the monotony were the two times a day the door opened and the voiceless thug delivered what felt like the bare minimum amount of food needed to keep me alive.
“Rise and shine,” Paul’s voice cut through the residual sleep haze.
My eyes snapped open.
“Today’s your lucky day—I’ll be auctioning you off in a few hours.” He leaned against the wall at the foot of the bed, his eyes daring me to break down in front of him so he could humiliate me even more.
I didn’t give him the satisfaction even though my throat constricted at the prospect of the bleak future ahead. “Don’t you have a business to run or something? I can’t believe a man who gloats he’s worth four hundred million dollars wastes his time in a dump like this running a human trafficking ring. What’s the point?”
“You’re assuming I do this for the money,” Paul said. “It’s more of a hobby, something I enjoy. And in your case, I personally wanted to oversee the process to make sure you get everything you deserve.”
“You’re one to talk, you creep. I can’t think of a single person the world would be better off without than you.”
Paul scowled. “You will spend the rest of your short, miserable life wishing you’d never refused me at the bar. If you’d just been a good little slut like you should have been, none of this would have ever happened to you.”
I’d had two days to come to terms with the realities of my situation. Two solid days of painful reflection over my life and all the mistakes that had led to this point. Calling out Paul at the bar was not one of them, and that belief gave me the strength to continue to at least make him angry for as long as I could.
“I doubt you could even show a slut a good time, you scumbag. I bet you resort to doing this because you’re so worthless in bed that no women would ever willingly sleep with you.”
“How dare you,” Paul said. He walked to the bed and grabbed my legs, pulling me to the edge. “I’ll show you how wrong you are, you worthless bitch.”
I struggled as he tried to pin me down and open his pants at the same time. The panties I wore weren’t much protection against a rapist, something I was all too aware of.
“Get off of me!” I shouted. I flung all my limbs up at once, hoping that something would fend him off.
My right foot connected with something, the contact so hard it felt like it would bruise later.
Paul toppled over, falling to his side on the floor, hands in between his legs. My kick had gotten him right in the testicles.
“You bitch,” he wheezed. So little air was left in his lungs that it was barely audible.
He had left the door cracked when he’d entered the room. I leapt up and swung it open, sticking my head out into the hall and looking either direction.
The hallway was a long corridor with many identical doors to the one I was halfway through. A table to the side held a gun—Paul must have put it there while he entered the room.
Paul crawled toward me, almost within reach of my ankles before I noticed.
“Shit!” Out of reflex I lashed out again with my foot and caught him in the face, knocking him sideways. I ran out of the cell and slammed the door behind me.
It was impossible to tell which direction led outside. I knew from the window I was on the second or third floor, and I thought I knew which way was more likely to have a road. Slaps from my bare feet echoed down the hall as I ran. Doors whizzed by, the tiny dimensions of the cells allowing many to be crammed into a small stretch of hallway.
So many cells. Are they all occupied, or am I the only one here?
I couldn’t believe all this was set up purely for my benefit. My heart broke as I tried to decide whether to try to free anyone else.
“Fuck,” I murmured, and stopped my sprint.
I tugged on a door, taking a moment to figure out the door mechanism. It finally gave way, and I held my breath as the heavy door pushed open, finger creeping along the gun to the trigger just in case.
Nothing.
The room was empty, the bed frame not even supporting a mattress.
I can’t open every door until I find someone.
The best hopes of helping any other women in the building were to escape and bring the police back.
I ran down the hall until I came across a door different from all the others I’d passed. Instead of a security door, it was a simple hinged affair. With a tentative nudge, I cracked it enough to look in and see stairs.
Perfect.
As quietly as I could, I opened the door and entered the stairwell, closing it behind with barely a whisper of sound. Bare feet worked to my advantage as I could place each step and avoid letting any sounds echo to other floors. I couldn’t count on the rest of the building being as uninhabited by captors as the floor I’d called home for the past two days.
The big number two on the wall was a good sign. The next floor down was the bottom of the staircase and had a large “G” splashed onto the concrete wall.
Careful to not even breathe audibly, I put my shoulder against the wall beside the door and held the pistol in front of me, ready to peek out into the hall.
For a moment I pictured what I would look like to an observer. Buxom brunette in lingerie creeping around an old prison complex with a handgun. The thought almost made me giggle—it could have been the basis for a cool photoshoot.
Okay, here we go, Liberty. You can do this. Just find an exit and get out of here!
I reached my free hand out to pull the door handle. It had opened only an inch before the sound of steps echoed through and two men walked past.
They were speaking to each other, but it was in Russian or another language. It didn’t look like they were in a rush and they weren’t yelling, so my escape must have gone undetected so far.
I wonder how often they check the cameras to watch the girls and make sure they’re not up to anything they shouldn’t be. It couldn’t have been a constant surveillance or else it would have been clear I’d trapped Paul in the room. Unless he got them to switch it off because he’d planned on raping me.
The thought made me smile. It would serve him right.
The men had disappeared down the hall and I couldn’t hear the sound of their voices or their footsteps any longer.
I opened the door again and poked my head out just enough to look down the hall in either direction. This floor didn’t have any cell doors on it, and the hallway was wider and less barren—more of an administrative feel. Holding my breath and squeezing through the stairwell door so I wouldn’t have to open it any wider than I had to, I popped out into the open.
The direction the men had gone was toward where I thought the exit would be. I paused as I tried to figure out what to do.
“Hey!” A loud shout surprised me. I whipped my head around to see Anton. He was half out of a doorway behind me. “Guards!” He continued on in the language used by the guards as he ran toward me.
Talk about the worst damn timing possible!
There was only one direction to go, and it was toward the men w
ho had just walked past.
This won’t work out well.
The corridor didn’t last much longer in this direction before it emptied into a large room. Rays of muted sunlight lit the floor through two wide double doors finished with frosted glass. There was a desk and seating arrayed along one wall and standing beside the desk were the two men from earlier.
I ground to a halt as I looked desperately for my best choice. The outside was so close—it was a mere thirty feet to the doors— but the guards were closer, and both raised their guns, shouting words I didn’t understand.
Only then remembering the firearm I held in my hand, I brought it up to point at the men. The shouting intensified, and sweat broke out along my forehead. When Anton ran into the room, I swiveled to train the handgun on him.
“Whoa!” he said. “Where did you get that from? Don’t be a fool, Liberty, put the gun down.”
I looked at him, then the guards. They didn’t look to be in any hurry to shoot, and I barely even knew what I was doing with a gun. There was an uneasy stalemate.
“Why did you do this?” I asked Anton. If this was the end of the line, I at least wanted answers. “How do you live with yourself?”
He looked pained. “Liberty, I don’t like this. I don’t have a choice, any more than you do. Once you owe the wrong people a favor that can be the end of any chance for a respectable life.”
Tears filled my eyes and dropped down my cheeks. I had been so close. To escape and freedom. To seeing Stephen again. To going back to the life I should be living.
“Just put the gun down,” Anton said again. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
I stared at him. Hated him. Would it be worth dying so that one of these criminals would be wiped off the face of the earth and unable to inflict suffering on any other women?
My trigger finger trembled. I wanted to do it so badly.
A loud crash thirty feet to my left made me flinch. The gun went off in my hand with a loud crack and the recoil of the handgun sent me reeling backward as I tried to see what happened.
Dozens of men in black body armor and helmets streamed in through the double doors. They overwhelmed the two Russians and disarmed them almost instantly. Anton had hit the ground and clutched his shoulder, screaming.
Taking Flight (A Devereux Novel) Page 26